Legends say that the master craftsmen put an intentional error into their top to spare the space teams feelings and that their real top is still spinning to this day
on the results id say the rocket scientist guys did do amazingly considering that they are all around their 30s whereas the craftsmen were all 70s. in just roughly 12 years of skill building they managed to be almost as good as men who have been training for over 50 years. an amazing achievement for them really.
to be fair...look at the beginning, the right one moved to the right...meaning something wasnt really right with the surface...who knows how much energy that cost
looking at how controlled they did the test id assume the platforms were pre-checked and inspected by the teams.
i think the ball shaped point was their flaw. although it did help to keep the spinning top balanced (why it took so long to fall after becoming unbalanced), it allowed for more movement at contact, so it moved off centre, by moving this caused a tiny amount of instability, which resulted in the top becoming unbalanced
the pin point of the other teams had less movement because a point doesn't move as easily as the smooth ball shape, however it does not hold well once unstable. this is why it did last longer, but once it became unbalanced it almost immediately fell within seconds.